Bruce Bennett was covered with blood as he climbed the stairs to defend his wife, Debra, and their two daughters.

But his earnest attempts to save his family were overcome by the ruthlessness of his attacker early on the morning of Jan. 16, 1984, 31 years ago today.

The cat burglar who entered home at 16387 E. Center Drive in Aurora armed with a knife and hammer had more on his mind than theft.

Before Bennett’s mother, Constance Bennett, discovered his body hours later inside his home, he had been cut and slashed numerous times and struck in the head with a hammer.

He had numerous injuries that could have killed him.

“It was quite clear he fought with the intruder,” said Ann Tomsic, deputy district attorney for the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office. “It’s apparent he had struggled with his attacker in more than one location and on more than one floor of the house.”

The 27-year-old man lost the battle with a killer who pummeled and sexually assaulted his 26-year-old wife, Debra, and 7-year-old daughter, Melissa.

The killer also shattered the face of Bruce Bennett’s 3-year-old daughter, Vanessa.

Though Vanessa’s jaw was crushed, sending jagged bones into her windpipe, she survived after her grandmother, Constance Bennett, checked on the family later that morning when they didn’t show up to work at a family-owned furniture store.

“It’s just like it was yesterday,” Constance Bennett said. “It’s something I’ll never get over. It’s scary what people can do.”

Vanessa went to live with Bennett after a lengthy series of operations that left scars on her arms, face and head.

An investigation in which more than 500 people were questioned did not uncover any leads to solve the case.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.